Alumni in EECS Connector 2015

Growing up in Pakistan, Ashar Aziz at a young age had a goal to be a technologist and an inventor and entrepreneur. When he learned from one of his cousins that MIT was the best engineering school in the world, he decided that would be the best way to reach his goal. Read more.

Co-Founder and COO, GrubHub Seamless; blogger, writer
Mike Evans has known about MIT for a long time — since his older brother applied to MIT when he (Mike) was in the sixth grade. “I distinctly remember sitting in the back seat of our car listening to my mother talking to him about it. She said, ‘If you go to MIT, you can do anything in the world.’” Read more.

Yoky Matsuoka has always liked math and physics, but, she says, “…those interests were dwarfed by my pursuit to be a professional tennis player.” Since her earlier years in her native Japan and then in California by age 16, she loved tennis. Spending about 30 hours per week training, she realized two things: “I didn’t know much else besides tennis and my career as a high-earning top tennis player was not going to be a reality [due in part to injuries].” Read more.

Jaime Teevan enjoys doing research because she thrives on exploring open-ended unanswered questions. She says, “One trait that I have found advantageous is a willingness to jump headfirst into things — be it starting a new line of research or helping my son publish a book.” Read more.

Robert (Bobby) Blumofe admits that his predecessors did not provide math/science role models. “My father was in charge of production at United Artists and then Director of the American Film Institute West. On the other side, my mother’s father was Jack Benny,” Read more.

Vanu Bose was an MIT child as his father, Amar, was a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department for 45 years, as well as founder of the Bose Corporation in 1964. Every Sunday morning Vanu remembers coming to play badminton with his father and a group of faculty and students – an enduring early vision of what MIT was about. Read more.

At age 10, Cynthia Breazeal, was really inspired and influenced by the movie Star Wars. “I was fascinated by the droids, R2D2 and C3PO.” Breazeal felt robots were not only intelligent and capable, but also social and emotive — with rich personalities and capable of forging meaningful relationships with people. “Robots for me should always have intelligence with heart, and they should engage with us like devoted sidekicks, instead of just tools or slaves. Our experience with technology should reinforce what we love about the human experience, not dehumanize us.” This is her enduring vision. Read more.